WILMINGTON, Del. — Delaware is known for its association with a recent vice president of the United States, the du Pont family and friendly bankruptcy laws. For its basketball pedigree? Not so much.

Donte DiVincenzo always wanted to become a professional athlete. But as with many Delawareans, his favorite sport was soccer.

When he started to concentrate on basketball, shortly before high school, the decision was unpopular. There have been only 16 athletes inducted into the state’s sports hall of fame for basketball. Three were referees.

But Delaware’s basketball chops have never been stronger, now that two products of the First State are competing in the round of 16 of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament: DiVincenzo, the sixth man for Villanova, and Trevon Duval, the starting point guard for Duke.

A third, Peyton Heck, is a Villanova walk-on.

“If you’re from Delaware, you’re part of a very big family,” said Elena Delle Donne, the W.N.B.A. star and perhaps the most accomplished basketball player the state has produced. “Rooting for these guys on the national stage is a moment that everyone in Delaware will be tuning in to.”

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The state flag of Delaware, the First State, hangs at the Boys & Girls Club, where Duke’s Trevon Duval played, in Wilmington, Del.CreditMark Makela for The New York Times

In other words, it’s rare. When was the last time a pair of Delawareans were playing key roles this late in March? “It’s been a while,” Stan Waterman, the coach at Sanford School in Hockessin, said. “I can’t really remember.”

In fact, there have been more N.B.A. players to hail from Montana (10) than from Delaware (seven).

And while, yes, Montana outdoes Delaware in size and population, consider that the District of Columbia has 10 times the N.B.A. pedigree with only two-thirds the population.

There are some reasons for this. Delaware was one of two states last year in which more high school boys played lacrosse than basketball (the other was Maryland). There were more athletes playing soccer and football in the state as well.

Richard Lapchick, chairman of the sports business management program at Central Florida and director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, said a lack of opportunity and top-flight competition in the state was mostly to blame. Delaware has only 59 high schools competing in one division in high school basketball.

Doug Gelbert, author of “The Great(er) Delaware Sports Book,” which at 250 pages is a light read, said the state’s best players, such as the former Temple and N.B.A. guard Terence Stansbury, frequently traveled to Philadelphia from Newark, Del., for pickup games.

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Trevon Duval had “302,” Delaware’s area code, and “New Castle,” the name of his hometown, tattooed on his leg.CreditMarc Tracy/The New York Times

“It’s not just hoops,” Gelbert wrote in an email. “Delaware has not had a national reputation in any sport since the days of rifle shooting about 100 years ago. Maybe billiards in the ’30s.”

This has left Delaware with a bit of a Napoleon complex when it comes to basketball. It isn’t new. Spencer Dunkley, a University of Delaware center, once guaranteed to “walk back to Delaware” if his 13th-seeded team lost to fourth-seeded Louisville in the N.C.A.A. tournament. Naturally, it lost.

That was in 1993. Delaware remains winless in the tournament. And the state is eager to shed its reputation as the drive-through interlude on Interstate 95 between two basketball hotbeds: Philadelphia and Baltimore.

“Those states kind of ate us up,” Mark Sills, a longtime organizer of youth basketball, said of Pennsylvania and Maryland. “We’ve had great players come out of here, but we don’t get the publicity.”

Even the publicity that players do get can have a sarcastic undertone. Villanova Coach Jay Wright, for instance, has called DiVincenzo the Michael Jordan of Delaware. The nickname has stuck.

Basketball trophies are displayed at the Boys & Girls Club, where Duval learned the game before going to Duke. Stars like Duval often leave the state in search of better competition and opportunities.CreditMark Makela for The New York Times

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Salesianum School won back-to-back state basketball championships when DiVincenzo starred there.CreditMark Makela for The New York Times

Duval has put Delaware on his leg. The area code, 302, is tattooed on his left calf, along with the name of his hometown (New Castle). Though he went outside the state for high school, he maintains a connection. Last year, he returned to Sanford School, which serves grades K through 12, and where he went to middle school, to attend prom.

“A lot of people are excited,” Scott Klatzkin, the voice of University of Delaware athletics, said. “There’s a lot of in-state pride when somebody from little old Delaware makes it.”

Folks in Delaware still talk wistfully about Walter Davis, an adopted son (he was born in North Carolina and played at Sanford for a year, in 1973), and A.J. English, who was born in Wilmington and played two years in the N.B.A. for the Washington Bullets.

The closest comparison for a player like Duval, however, might be Delle Donne, the Wilmington native and transcendent superstar for the University of Delaware, who was drafted second over all by the W.N.B.A.’s Chicago Sky in 2013. Sills said he had detected a clear uptick in interest among girls’ players thanks to her influence.

The hope, Waterman said, is that Duval will have a similar impact for boys’ basketball in the state.

“Whether he wants to, he’s carrying the flag right now,” said Waterman, a five-time state champion. “Everybody’s watching him. All the youth league coaches are talking about him and putting his face out there for all the youngsters.”

Unlike Duval, DiVincenzo stayed around for high school, winning two state titles for Salesianum School in Wilmington. Before he showed up, the program had won more than 150 state titles in sports like swimming, cross-country and lacrosse, but never in basketball.

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Mark Sills, president of a Wilmington youth basketball league, said Delaware had produced fine players but was often overshadowed by Pennsylvania and Maryland.CreditMark Makela for The New York Times

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The Rev. Chris Beretta of Salesianum School was an assistant basketball coach when Villanova’s DiVincenzo played there.CreditMark Makela for The New York Times

At Salesianum on Tuesday, some students were wearing Villanova hats, which is understandable considering the campus is 30 miles away. Faculty members were eager to reminisce about DiVincenzo’s dazzling days as a Sallie.

“He had some natural athleticism that was just so rare,” the Rev. Chris Beretta, the school’s principal (and assistant basketball coach), said. “You just never knew. He could all of a sudden just turn it on.”

But after DiVincenzo’s junior year, a rumor began to circulate that he was planning to leave to attend a prep school out of state. It grew pervasive enough that Villanova’s coaches called Haley at Salesianum to assure him that they were not the ones encouraging him to leave.

“If you’re in Delaware, that’s almost the thing to do,” Haley said. “People start talking about where you’re going to go.”

Clearly, it touched a nerve. This is a problem for Delaware. Its best players are too often emigrating out because the competition outside the state is superior.

“Better opportunities, bigger stage,” Duval said about his own decision to leave, a phrase Delawareans have heard often. Eric Ayala, a top 2018 prospect who is committed to play at Maryland, left Sanford after his sophomore year to attend a prep school in Connecticut and then IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.

“Sometimes you’re that big fish in a small pond,” Waterman said. “And they just want to try different things.”

DiVincenzo stayed, won another state title, and has been considered basketball royalty in the state ever since.

“Every time I go home now, everyone knows who I am,” he said. “They welcome me anywhere.”

It would be easy for the adulation to go to his head. But even the Michael Jordan of Delaware still plays with a chip on his shoulder.